Deliberative Sentencing: Democracy, Justification, and the Politics of Responding to Crimes

This book explores criminal sentencing as a political, legal and social process, setting out a democratic account of sentencing in common law jurisdictions.

Taking sentencing as a case study of public decision-making in which judges manage public interests, often through value-laden and discretionary choices, it draws on a particular vision of deliberative democracy. This is a vision on which the legitimacy of sentencing decisions is shown to hinge on processes of public reasoning, listenin...